Seems like I wasn’t the only upset by the deliberately opaque wording on the Graze website for those taking up the offer.

Now another contact has sent me the hotly worded email of complaint he fired off to Graze when he realised he was receiving boxes he didn’t want and was being pickpocketed by a company he thought he could trust.

Let me be clear, this chap is no wet-behind the ears novice. He’s a web-savvy and canny guy with a family and bags of life experience. More importantly he knows the exact value of a pound and has a steely resolve when it comes to spending his money wisely.

Nor is he the kind of guy who would easily part with his card payment details, unless he implicitly trusted the credentials of the company he was dealing with, was clear about what he was signing up for and was absolutely sure the platform was secure.

Just like me, he was gobsmacked when it became clear what Graze was up to. And he clearly feels that Graze has frittered away a hard-won reputation for ethical behaviour in pursuit of a quick buck. Tawdry, disappointing and worst of all, a real breach of trust.

Here’s some of the choice snippets from his email correspondence with customer services reps at Graze (catchphrase: “Nature Delivered”):

“It is unacceptable to play these games with customers and your business model will ultimately fail. It is a very cynical way to treat people.

“My impression was that I was trialling the service on a one off basis and you have misled me and no doubt many others. A very unhappy experience.”

Later he adds:

“I think that you urgently need to review your free trial process as I certainly misunderstood the offer. Sadly for you, I liked the idea and hoped to use it at a later date. After this experience I will not return.

“Personally, I intend to never provide credit card details like this to any company in the future based on this experience.”

I’m still bewildered by what Graze were up to with this ‘offer’. They could easily have delighted thousands of potential new customer with the free Graze box – then used the email addresses they were given to market to those people and probably turn many of them into more regular customers.

Instead, they needlessly alienated half a dozen people I know and probably many more beyond. Perhaps the full scale of this won’t be obvious for a while, because many people may not notice the small sums (£3.89 a time) disappearing from their bank accounts.

When they do, I suspect Graze will get quite a few more angry emails from ex-customers.

In fairness, it seems like the company may already be looking into this.

While the company rep defended the practice (insisting customers are advised throughout sign-up that they are signing up for weekly deliveries and can cancel at any time), she also acknowledged that Graze will be looking again at the process.

She wrote: “In light of your feedback we will be looking very closely at our sign up process to see if there are any ways that this can be made even clearer when people join up with us, as the last thing we want to do is mislead people, so your email has been passed onto our accounts team and the website team to study.”

I genuinely hope Graze get this sorted quickly. They come over as a likeable and ethical company – which only serves to magnify how unpleasant this kind of cash grab is.

With a wee bit of luck, quick action and a heartfelt ‘sorry’ to those who were confused by the sign up, they might yet keep hold of that reputation.

On a recent episode of This Week In Tech podcast, online luminary Jeff Jarvis asked a live crowd of tech lovers at The South by South West event: “How many of you use Groupon?”

His question was met with silence and Jarvis added: “Then why is it so big? I don’t get it.”

I share his bafflement. I struggle to understand how businesses can sell product at a fraction of the usual price and from what little money they take, then have to pay Groupon.

I also have doubts about how many of those bargain-hunters will convert to long-term customers.

When news of the Groupon IPO broke I put a question out on LinkedIn asking if other people shared my suspicion that it was grossly over-valued and likely to pop. Turns out quite a few long term web watchers and smart people whose opinion I value are equally bemused by Groupon’s success.

Maybe we have a shared cyncisim? Certainly I’ve always adhered to the view that if something appears too good to be true, then it almost certainly isn’t true.

I can’t shake that feeling about Groupon – but then, I’ve never used it, either as a business or a customer.

So I’d love to hear from companies or businesses which have used the service repeatedly and found it a great way to build a new, engaged and loyal customer base.

Likewise I’d be keen to hear from any business owner or operator who has used Groupon – and definitely won’t be hurrying back to use it again.

If you have any thoughts or experiences to share, the comment section below awaits you!

Not content with polluting the planet itself, we are now creating a hazardous ring of waste in the near space just beyond our atmosphere.

Bits of broken satellite, tools discarded or dropped by spacewalking astronauts and thebooster rockets and other stuff which is ejected while spacecraft are being propelled into orbit. The image you see here is from the European Space Agency which is working with NASA to map every piece of space debris.

All of this garbage is forming an increasingly dense and dangerous junk belt around the planet. It poses an ever growing risk to future space flight and a threat to the communications satellites we rely on for everything from mobile phones and TV shows to sat-nav and web access.

Now NASA is considering employing lasers. Not to blast the garbage out of existence, but to gently nudge it farther away from our dear ‘Blue Marble’.

Once any piece of space junk is pushed out of the way, it is less likely to ever collide with other space junk – the main reason the amount of dangerous debris is multiplying at an alarming rate.

TWO – Talking of garbage, pollutants and unsavoury junk swilling about where it is unwanted but where nobody is really sure what to do with it – let’s move over to the reader comments section of The Scotsman.

Sadly what could and should be a forum for informed and reasoned debate has been turned into juvenile place for the exchange of playground insults. These mostly seem to be traded by Labour and SNP policy wonks.

However, alongside the cringeworthy peacocking of the politicos, you can occasionally find musings of the harmlessly obsessed or deluded. I reckon this next sites falls pretty much into that category.

What is clear is that commenter (and the man behind this website), John Hall has spent an awful lot of time worrying about space debris. His comment on The Scotsman site suggested the Japanese quake may have been triggered by falling space debris. No. Really. I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt that he doesn’t really believe that and he was exaggerating for linkbaiting effect

He also seems to suggest a possible link between falling space junk and the Lockerbie disaster and, as he puts it, he is: “convinced that space debris has impacted our planet far more times than both the scientists and authorities care to disclose.”

Indeed, his site includes plentiful links to stories suggesting space junk is the cause of many worldy woes – from inexplicable fires to irradiated sheep. While Mr Hall may be a tad obsessive about the subject, he is fastidious in pointing out that his particular conspiracy theory has nothing to do with aliens or little green men.

THREE – He should try telling that to Radivoje Lajic who has his own X Files-style explanation for why his home in Bosnia has been hit six times by falling meteors – all confirmed as space rock by Belgrade University.

The nature of ‘reward’ has been very much on my mind as we start 2011. Specifically, what type of rewards help people to get the best from themselves.

Rewards that will unleash their creativity, boost motivation and make work more enjoyable for everyone involved.

When trying to find solutions for the workplace, I strive wherever possible to seek answers and examples from other aspects of life.

So let me share two recent examples of ‘reward’ systems I’ve encountered. One unexpectedly good, the other … hmmmm.

Starting with the good:

My eight-year-old daughter usually doesn’t want to come along when I walk our pet dog.

I sympathise. A five mile country yomp? When there’s so much fun stuff to be had elsewhere?

Yet on New Year’s Day the same kid attacked a more difficult, 6.75 mile trek with gusto. So what made the difference?

Well, the people behind the Wildcat Experience, which includes a walk around scenic Newtonmore in the Scottish Highlands, ensure the whole experience is particularly rewarding for youngsters who take part.

What do you call someone who throws their toys out of the pram and stomps away from the world’s biggest microblogging platform?

Can I suggest they should be known as Tquitters – pronounced Teh-quitters?

This would just about fulfil the annoying Twitterati convention of trying to ‘improve’ perfectly good words by adding T and a W sounds (see the hilarious Twitter-based spoof of the Facebook movie trailer, where a man orders a Twhisky, then insists he didn’t want any Twater).

The question arose today while I was reading the Daily Record’s main showbiz column, The Razz with Bev Lyons. There was story all about short-messaging service, Twitter.

It seems musician and songwriter John Mayer has axed his account (see picture at the start of this post), from which he regularly tweeted out thoughts and observations to an audience of 3.7 million followers. All in 140 characters or less.